dart-lang
Consider a "Maintainer Wanted" tag
If set on a package and not removed in 6 months, then maybe the package should change to "discontinued".
In offline discussions we have identified a few use-cases that may be related to "maintainer wanted":
From the package admin point of view:
- Current developer doesn't have time to administer the package, offers a handoff to the community.
- Current developer seeks to transfer ownership, and wants to advertise it, offering a transition period.
- Current developer(s) seek further contributors, but keep(s) maintaining the package.
From the new contributors point of view:
- A developer is looking for packages that seek contributions, browsing them if any of them peeks their interest. Both beginners and experienced developers could be looking for different kind of tasks or challenges here.
- A developer is checking out a package to be included in their project, sees that it seeks maintainers, and instead of dropping it as a dependency, they may join the efforts.
It is not clear which combination of these is supported the best with an admin option, badge and search checkbox, and whether we should also attach a more formalized approach (e.g. further text or link to a file or readme section).
(we also talked about integrating with the github "topic" feature https://github.com/topics/maintainer-wanted)
The advantage is, that package authors don't need to flip a flag two places. One downside is that we become github specific.
Also we could consider the ability to link to somewhere that describes in more detail what kind of maintenance that is wanted.